31 July 2009

Are we all sick and tired of hearing about the Adriano Zumbo Chocolate Mousse Cake yet?

As someone passionate about food I'm always keen to taste new things but making it myself is another story. I'm a keen supporter of the 'you cook it and I'll eat it' philosophy. While I wait to see if I'm a lucky lottery winner to buy one of the $90 limited edition cakes from Adriano Zumbo Pastisserie I thank my lucky stars that I work with Chef Dom who attempted the cake recipe over 2 long nights of preparation. I believe it was a very challenging recipe as EatShow&Tell, Tasted By Two, I'm Hungry Too and I'm sure many others have realised but I thankfully reap the benefits of Chef Dom's hard labour. He only had square tins and ran out of time to do the white tempered chocolate curls. His first attempt at the caramel failed and found some of the recipe ingredients hard to obtain.

The final appearance of the cake looked sadly like a bit of a chocolate car crash which was slowing melting away which Chef Dom was not happy with but the first slice revealed a perfectly layered cake worthy of Masterchef judging. Chef Dom did a great job and pleased the lucky few that sampled his amazing efforts. The taste of ginger throughout the apple tatin was excellent and helped to break up the heaviness of the chocolate taste and all the flavours including the caramel seemed to work very well together. A small slice was more than enough to get me bouncing off the walls with a sugar high.

If you can't be bothered trying to make it yourself, don't know anyone that will make it and didn't win a chance to buy one from Adriano Zumbo Pastisserie then try the Concorde cake from Bacco which I promise will deliver a satisfying chocolate hit as well.

9 comments:

Perhaps renaming this cake the "Chocolate Car Crash" would be more accurate; I'm sure Mr Zumbo would not like to be associated with this effort! :-)

Although I don't regret making this, the mousse was the bit that really stumped me - it just would not set properly - hence said car crash. If anyone has tried making this mousse, tips would be fantastic!

Three things I learnt from this effort:1. A profound respect for patisserie chefs and what the Masterchef contestents had to undergo in 3 hours - I split my effort over 2 nights which was much more doable2. Time vs patience - You'd need a blast freezer to do it properly 3. My head re-examined. :-)

Chef Dom0 I take my hat off to you for your effort. I know exactly how you feel regarding patience. The inside of your cake looked awesome though. Hmm Regarding the Mousse, did you add the pectin? I found that adding the Pectin helps the mousse hold it's shape.

Thanks Lorraine, it was a great learning experience with totally new techniques (OMG!) etc.

Linda, yes, I actually added extra pectin, as I couldn't get fresh blackberries I substituted blackberry jam for the blackberry ganache bit. However, I think there's a misprint in the recipe regarding eggs for the sabayon mousse. So anyone out there trying it out, I would add perhaps 3-4 eggs instead of 50g (1 egg) as stated in the recipe). It ended up too runny. I think Poh in the competition had the same problem.

Small Bars in Sydney map

Hash Brown of the week

subscribe to Free updates

Sydney NSW Leaderboard

Simon Leong

Passionate Sydney food blogger in search of the best dishes around the world and writing reviews to whet your appetite. Feel free to email me your recommendations of where to eat simonleong[at]hotmail[dot]com